So why is your life possibly in danger driving the most expensive flagship Infiniti SUV your money can buy? Well, let me tell you my story...
I bought my brand new 2012 Infiniti QX56 4x4 for $75K in late 2012 new from the local dealer in Central Kentucky. It had 118 miles on it when I took delivery and I loved it. I didn't care too much about the 12 MPG gas thing as my office is a mere three miles from my house meaning I drive a total of roughly six miles per day on 95% of my days. Hmmm.. that means my nine year old car - with some vacations here and there - has about 50K miles on it? Correct. 52K to be exact.
In the time I've owned this vehicle, I had a timing chain recall, a class action suit for the worst paint job you've ever seen, a tire that had a huge sidewall knot within the first two weeks of ownership, etc. But after the warranty expired, that's when the real fun started.
Since then, I have replaced every single door lock at a price of roughly $500/door. Then there's the story about the $1K+ air compressor that keeps the rear end from dragging its a** like a dog but thats not the point of this post. No... this post is about how you and your family could possibly die driving this vehicle. And since big claims require big proof, let's get into that.
A month or so ago, my wife and I were driving to SC from KY and decided to take her Audi instead of the QX because it gets roughly twice the MPG. So off we went to the beach.. about a 1K mile round trip. Upon our arrival back to KY, I needed to go fill up the QX so I drove exactly 1.2 miles from my house to the gas station and topped her off.
As I was pulling out of the parking lot, I heard a weird noise that sounded like the ABS kicked in, which was super weird. I drove forward a few hundred more feet and heard something rubbing. That's not good. So I pulled over and jumped out to find this...
Obviously, we have a suspension problem here so I parked it and called a tow truck to take it to the closet repair center to my house. I got a call that night that I needed to see this so I swung by the next morning to figure out what the heck was going on. This is the cause of my problem...
Does that look normal to you? For a nine year old car with 52K miles in an area that gets maybe a few snowfalls a year? It gets worse. Here's some more pics...
That's the "good" side... the driver's side. So your control arms are rusted and you're complaining? Well yeah... but what if it gets worse?
How about a look at the rear subframe with the spare tire removed? That looks... interesting, right?
Every single surface of the entire rear suspension is quietly rusting away beneath you like sand through an hourglass. It appears to be where the welds are but it honestly doesn't matter. So I call customer affairs or whatever they claim to be. They tell me "No problem. Take it to the dealer." Well, there's one problem with that. The car is in pieces. The entire rear suspension is out of the car for diagnosis but I say to hell with it and tell the guys at the shop to load the parts in the back of my car because, hey, its got ANOTHER recall outstanding so I'll just show them when I go there.
I call to make my appointment and the service manager basically says "Don't bother." But you know what, those dudes loaded this beast in the back of my car and it has to weigh at least 300 pounds, so here's picture proof that I tried to give Infiniti a chance to make this right. Here it is in all its glory...
Infiniti has ZERO interest in standing behind their flagship product and thats a shame. They could have made some minimal attempt to "make it right" but they told me to pound sand.
So anyway, back to my original point. If gas prices weren't what they are, we'd have taken the QX on a 1K mile trip and likely been at highway speeds when this control arm gave away... very likely killing us in a rollover. SO what do I have to show for it, other than my life? I have a $6800 repair bill to replace the entire rear frame and both upper and lower control arms on both sides. That includes every single bolt as they were ALL rusted in place and had to be cut off with a torch.
This is unacceptable. If you or anyone you know has one of these vehicles, please inspect it ASAP. My business partner's neighbor has the exact same year (and color) and I looked at theirs and its doing the exact same thing. The wife was loading her baby in the car while I was under it.
If you're affected, reach out to me please. I don't care about the $7K. This is about saving lives and if a class action suit gets it done, then so be it. And for the record, I gave Infiniti every opportunity to make it right and they flat out refuse.
I'll be ditching this rust bucket ASAP and I would advise you do the same if yours looks anything like mine. It's simply not worth it.